Isaac Newton, easily.
He almost single handedly invented calculus and modern physics, including gravitation, kinetics, mechanics and optics. Some modifications have been made since then, but he laid the foundation for everything and many/most of his discoveries are still being actively taught and used 300 years later.
Look around you. Unless you are in a forest right now, almost every single object around you is an eventual result of his work.

The study determined the following IQs of each president as accurate to within five percentage points:
147 Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
132 Harry Truman (D)
122 Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
174 John F. Kennedy (D)
126 Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
155 Richard M. Nixon (R)
121 Gerald Ford (R)
175 James E. Carter (D)
105 Ronald Reagan (R)
098 George HW Bush (R)
182 William J. Clinton (D)
091 George W. Bush (R)
The six Republican presidents of the past 50 years had an average IQ of 115.5, with President Nixon having the highest IQ, at 155.
President G. W. Bush was rated the lowest of all the Republicans with an IQ of 91. The six Democrat presidents had IQs with an average of 156, with President Clinton having the highest IQ, at 182. President Lyndon B. Johnson was rated the lowest of all the Democrats with an IQ of 126.
No president other than Carter (D) has released his actual IQ, 176.

Wrong Alpo.
Liebniz who lived at the same time as Newton is now credited as
simultaneously and independantly creating Calculus. Newton and him
had a major spat as to who came up with it first, and the Royal Society,
a British group, decided that Newton did after a hearing. In the 20th
century after reviewing other documents math historians now credit
them both, since there are some big differences between how the two
approached it, and Liebniz's method is used more today.
Optics wise, if you're talking about lenses, there were other men who
were working on them at the time and Newton built on them. Heck
Galileo and men before him had optics so Newton certainly didn't
invent them.
Mechanics, again he only furthered other works previous to his. A deep
understanding of mechanics had been around since the Greeks and
Archimedes.
Newton's one biggest contribution is his explaining the movements of
the
planets together with gravity.

"Well, Copernicus invented the heliocentric theory of the solar system, and we use that all the time! In fact, the earth STILL revolves around the sun! "
Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd Century BC had a heliocentric model of the solar system that Copernicus knew about. although his work is lost - Archimedes quoted Aristarchus in one of his works
as for the most brilliant ever ... thats a tough one. really there is too much legend/mystery around most and others well not all of their work survives - but a good list might include ...
thales
pythagoras
issac newton
archimedes
Eratosthenes
and on and on

Well, Copernicus invented the heliocentric theory of the solar system, and we use that all the time! In fact, the earth STILL revolves around the sun!
He didn't invent it, he just really pushed for it harder than anyone else and put it in the spotlight. Eventually, someone else would have done the same thing..I mean telescopes were becoming widespread and the heliocentric theory had been around for over a thousand years, so it was really nothing new. Not to take anything away from him, as he certainly has his place in history, but to say he invented it is like saying Columbus proved that the earth was round.
Isaac Newton's work was way ahead of its time, very original and insanely complex, compared to the existing science and math at the time. I doubt that any single person could have ever done what he did, especially that long ago.
depends on what you think brilliance is. Someone who knows shit in a book, or someone who has the balls to get in a boat and travel across the world where almost everyone thought you're ass would fall off the planet.
True.. I measure it by impact to society as well as the ability of others to accomplish the same feat.
i.e... How important were their contributions to mankind? How much of their fame is a product of being in the right place at the right time versus how much of it is because of real superhuman courage, determination or original thought?
If someone set it up right, I could press a button that would detonate nuclear weapons in every capital city in the world and my direct actions would effectively make me one the most important person that ever lived. Or would it? Even a cat could have stepped on the button and done the same thing.
This is why I wouldn't agree with nominations like Copernicus, who, while certainly brilliant, seem as much of a product of the society at the time as a product of their forward thinking.

right - but almost no one believed that the earth orbited the sun. hell even archimedes passed it off as crap.
i agree that copernicus shouldnt be on the list, but at least you can see why he is credited for establishing the heliocentric model

Give me a break, Pencil Neck. Are you downplaying the work of Newton because of some kind of personal vendetta? lol. You can't seriously even begin to compare Newton's work in mechanics, incorporating how own calculus, to what the Greeks used. You must be trolling.
Did you skip past the part where I said "modern physics"? I didn't say he invented everything from scratch. The fact is that his work is still used and your beloved Greeks' work isn't.

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